DUMMERSTON, Vt. -- Ling Chi, also known as "the death of a thousand cuts," was a method of public execution in China that involved cutting off pieces of a person's body until he or she died. Banned in 1905, this drastic punishment first became a metaphor and then came to rest in the English language as a cliché.

Which is why it jumped into my mind on
the day my 93-year-old mother, a former dancer
who lives alone in an independent living complex
apartment in Florida, had three skin cancers
removed from her face. In the next few weeks she
will also have two cataract surgeries. And then
there's a recurring urinary tract infection and
chronic kidney disease.

All alone, my mother goes from doctor to
doctor and procedure to procedure. I'm her
caretaker, her only living child, and I live
1,500 miles away. I talk to her every day,
handle her business affairs, speak to her doctors
on the phone and tie myself into knots of worry
and pain.

My mother's mind is clear and her heart,
lungs and hemoglobin count are excellent. I think
she's incredibly brave to be handling all this by
herself. I fear for her well-being every day.

How did we get into this situation? First
of all, Mom refused to move up north. The reasons
she gave were the cold, the lack of a Jewish
independent living facility and the friends she
has in Florida.

In September, after a lot of discussion,
fact-finding, columns of numbers, worry, sweat,
blood and tears, I helped Mom move from her large
house to the independent living facility. By
luck, in a totally dreadful real estate market,
we managed to sell the house for enough money to
keep her going for the next three or four years.

The move alleviates her biggest problems:
aide roulette, loneliness, isolation, an
inability to cook any more and the burden of
maintaining a large house that was aging just as
fast as she was.

In the two months she's been in her new
home, she's unpacked, decorated, bought
furniture, made friends and joined a play-reading
group. She's gone on outings to the theater. She
goes to dance classes. She has a physical
therapist who comes to her apartment three times
a week to help her with cramps and balance.

She's secure and well-protected
- protected, at least, from everything except her
own body. Sometimes it appears that a thousand
cuts isn't the half of it. Call it Ling Chi Lite.

Caretaking may be another form of Ling
Chi. It might not cut away pieces of your body,
but it certainly cuts away pieces of your heart.

My ability to take care of my mother is
complicated by distance. But geography is never
the only problem. As people live longer and
longer, I don't know if there are any really good
choices.

My friend Bunny, for example, decided
that her elderly mother could no longer live
alone and moved her into the home she shares with
her long-term boyfriend. They were happy to do
this, but they didn't expect what happened next.

"I still don't think I could park her in
some hellhole of an institution," Bunny e-mailed
me. "But she's pushing me. She's pushing me. I
seem to be in a constant state of near-rage,
snapping at everything. Here I am, insisting she
take her meds and breaking my butt trying to
blast her out of her chair. I'm such an idiot.
I should let her do her own thing and let the
chips fall where they may. It might hasten the
inevitable, but she seems to prefer that option
anyway. I'm not sure I'm doing her any favors by
keeping her alive. Isn't that sad?"

Another friend of mine, Lee, built an
apartment onto her spacious house and moved her
mother in, only to see her quickly drop into
dementia. It's so bad now that Lee had to install
a pulley system just to change her mother's
diapers. She spends half her time finding and
training aides and the other half taking care of
her mother when the aides quit. Her mother's
physical health is excellent. Lee is wound as
tight as a drum.

Bunny and Lee acted on their natural
instincts to protect and nurture their mothers.
Then there's me, same instincts, but not being
near, agonizing over everything that can possibly
go wrong and feeling helpless.

Back in my grandmother's day, families
were large and relatives lived close to each
other. Someone, usually an unmarried daughter,
took on the role of primary caregiver. In my
grandmother's family, it was her Aunt Leah, who
lost a leg when she was young to a dreadful
disease. It was assumed that no man would have
her, so she obediently lived at home all of her
life and took care of my great-grandfather.

Women's lives were disposable then. They aren't now.

When my grandmother, now widowed, started
aging, she was living happily in New York City,
My mother virtually forced her to leave her
friends and move to Florida so she could take
care of her.

Grandma bought a small condo apartment
near my parents and hated it. Since I was
unmarried at the time, she was furious that I
didn't move in and take care of her. In her mind,
I was the next generation of Aunt Leah. She even
tried to bribe me with a car. Luckily, my father
stepped in and said no.

So Grandma put herself into virtual
solitary confinement, speaking to no one but her
family for the next 18 years. She tormented my
mother with guilt until she died in a nursing
home at 94.

My mother may think that she's protecting
me from the same fate she suffered at the hands
of her mother, I don't know.

But I do know that I'm no Aunt Leah. I'm
not a selfless person. I've chosen to live my
life in Vermont, emotionally supported by my
husband, my work and my community. I consciously
decided not to sacrifice my life, live in Florida
and devote myself to my mother's care.

So there is Mom, far away, proudly
independent yet depending on the kindness of
strangers - and so far they have been extremely
kind. Her thousand cuts are of a physical nature.
She bravely faces down each one, saying, "We will
get through this, Joyce."